Many products and services promise to be the easiest, smartest, and best things ever. The problem is, they're not—and this disconnect between marketing and reality is building a web of skeptics.

Fortunately, anyone can build trust with users by setting realistic expectations and meeting them. Stephanie Hay is going to help you get started by taking cues from online and offline interactions before writing candid content, crafting helpful user experiences, and maintaining users' confidence even when you "fail."

Whether you're selling a product or redesigning your organization’s website, you'll leave Steph's energizing seminar with a renewed sense of confidence that being genuine is actually the best.

Speak the language your audiences use

You'll break the marketing lingo madness.

Use regular words that people actually say

(Re)familiarize yourself with Google’s free keyword tool

Test content—online and offline—for its understandability

You’ll look for content clues in the office, on the street, and in your inbox.

Try users’ messages in Adwords that tests for clicks rather than conversions

Ask current users why they chose you—and why they keep coming back

See your forms as conversations (not just conversions)

You'll see that optimization is more than just a number.

Make your forms UX fail-proof, both functionally and with tailored microcopy

Consider how email, ratings, or social-media interactions can satisfy marketing

Be helpful even when you don’t meet expectations

You set their expectations in the first place, didn’t you?

Anticipate gaps in content

Encourage audiences to become fans just by being responsive over email

Why Steph?

If you ever thought having final content before starting design was an impossible dream, you haven’t met @steph_hay. She’s worked with organizations of all sizes through a process that starts with writing real copy—and testing it for understandability—before doing any design.

In fact, she’s worked with us on this Content-first UX Design approach, and it’s been so successful that we wanted to share her with all of you. (But just for an hour!)

Steph has been an independent content strategy consultant since 2010. She also experiments with personal projects including MusicForWODs.com (playlists for CrossFit) -- which she grew to more than 20K Facebook fans in 12 weeks -- and a CrossFit profile site called Tougher.Me (want to be a beta tester?).

Her talks (in All You Can Learn) are UIE fan favorites, and you’ll soon see why -- if you’re looking for an energetic, refreshing, practical talk that’s fundamentally based on user experience design, this is it.